When you see the green expert checkmark on a wikiHow article, you can trust that the article was co-authored by a qualified expert.

This particular article was co-authored by Deanne Pawlisch, CVT. Deanne Pawlisch is a Certified Veterinary Technician, who does corporate training for veterinary practices, in Illinois. She has been a board member of the Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Foundation since 2011.

The authors of this article cited 16 references, which can be found at the bottom of the page.

Knowing the sex of your chickens can help you to create the best living situation for them moving forward. However, sexing chicks is not a straightforward process and requires examining a number of clues. After your chicks hatch, take a look at their feather patterns to see if you notice clear color differences. A few weeks later, look to see if some chicks appear noticeably larger and more aggressive than others. If you are able to accurately identify more than 50% of your chicks, then consider your efforts a success.

Steps

Method1

Inspecting Recently Hatched Chicks

1

Look at their wing feathers. While baby chicks are covered in down, the ends of their wings will have a light feather fringe. To view the wing feathers, grasp the chick firmly in one hand. Use your other hand to extend the wing out until the feathers are somewhat separated and visible. A male (cockerel) chick will have wing feathers of roughly the same length. A female (pullet) chick will have wing feathers featuring two varied lengths.

You can perform wing sexing 1 to 2 days after hatching and usually get accurate results. If you wait longer than this, the wing feather development will accelerate too much to read.[1]

2

Look at their down color. A chick is covered with downy, soft, small feathers until it develops past 6 weeks of age. Male chicks usually have light-colored heads, whereas females often have dark brown ones. If a female has down spots or stripes, they are typically brown or black. In contrast, a male’s accent marks are generally white or yellow.[2]

For example, male Rhode Island Red or New Hampshire chicks will have almost golden down coloring.

Similarly, Red Stars are a sex-linked breed, so the male and female are different colors. Males hatch buttery gold, while females hatch reddish-gold.[3]

In some situations, you can estimate the sex of a day-old chick using down color reading.

Certain breeds will have sex-unique down patterns. For example, male Barred Plymouth Rocks chicks will have yellow spots on their heads.

3

Look at their size. At about 3 to 4 weeks old, you should be able to start to tell the difference between male and female chicks based on their body size. Male chicks will generally have larger bodies and heads. Female chicks will appear a bit more petite.[4]

4

Attempt vent sexing. A warning in advance, it’s usually best to hire a professional to perform this procedure. However, if you choose to do it yourself, make sure to be gentle with the chick. Hold the chick in your hand and apply light pressure to its abdomen until the chick defecates. Look into the now clear anal vent. If you see a bump, then the chick is likely male. No bump indicates a female.[5]

In some breeds, both males and females will have what looks like a series of small beads in their anal vent. In these cases, the male will have a larger, round center bead. The female center bead will be flat in appearance.[6]

5

Wait until the chicks are 6 weeks old. If you are willing to wait this long to determine the sex, then your odds of success increase quite a bit. The physical changes, such as waddle development, will be easier to see. The behavioral changes, like the startle response, will also be more clear and consistent.[7]

In addition, if you wait for a few months, then the males are likely to start crowing.

Method2

Examining Older Chicks and Chickens

1

Monitor comb development at 6 weeks. By this point, male chicks will have fully developing combs, the fleshy extensions on the facial areas. You will notice the combs extending directly above the head. The comb skin will also turn red. In contrast, the female chick’s facial skin will stay yellow and unextended.

2

Examine the saddle feathers if the chick is between 8 and 10 weeks old. Hold the chick firmly in your hand and look where its back meets its tail. That is where the saddle feathers lie. You will notice that male chicks have jagged and sharp saddle feathers, whereas the feathers on females look more rounded and soft.[8]

3

Consider temperament. As you watch the chicks socialize together, try to pay attention to which birds display dominant or submissive tendencies. Male chicks will act less skittish and are more likely to bully their peers. Female chicks are more easily frightened by loud noises and will freeze in response.[9]

Another way to observe the fight-or-flight response is to approach the chicks while clapping your hands. The male chicks will issue warning chirps, while the females will usually stay silent.

4

Look at the wattles of adult chickens. The wattle is the loose, hanging skin underneath a chicken’s beak area. As a chicken matures, their wattle will grow in size. However, a male chicken’s wattle will also become brighter in color, usually taking on a reddish tone. A female chicken’s wattle will stay yellow, white, or gray.[10]

5

Watch for egg laying if inspecting adult chickens. If your chicken lays an egg, then it is clearly a mature hen (female). This can happen anywhere from 12 to 30 weeks of age. A rooster (male) cannot lay an egg, but may start crowing loudly around this same timeframe.[11]

Method3

Evaluating Other Sexing Options

1

Use laser spectroscopy for commercial purposes. This is a new technique that involves a lab shooting a small laser beam inside of an egg about 3 days after incubation. The technicians then use the DNA contents of the egg to determine the future sex of the chick.[12]

2

Get a “sex link” chick. These are chicks that are bred to exhibit a sex-specific color pattern at hatching. This means that you will be able to tell the sex of the chicks almost immediately with a high degree of accuracy. Red Stars, for example, are a sex link breed. Males are yellow golden, whereas females are reddish gold.[13]

3

Hire a professional. Ask around with your local farm supplier or other poultry farmers to see which “chick sexer” they would recommend. These professionals usually have extensive experience in sexing chicks and travel from location to location doing exactly that. They will generally charge you a flat fee for accurately sexing a certain number of chicks.[14]

4

Don’t trust egg shape reading. Some old wives’ tales suggest that males come from pointed eggs and females from rounded ones. The idea is that just looking at the egg’s shape can tell you the sex of the chick. However, this method has been discredited over time and has about the same accuracy as a guess.[15]

5

Select a method with more than 50% accuracy. If you just guess the sex each time you select a chick, you would end up being right around half of the time. For that reason, if you want to consider a sexing method a success, then its accuracy odds must be higher than 50%. Keep track of the methods that you use, your guesses, and the final results to see what works best for you.[16]

Community Q&A

Deanne Pawlisch is a Certified Veterinary Technician, who does corporate training for veterinary practices, in Illinois. She has been a board member of the Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Foundation since 2011.

Will boy chicks act differently from girl chicks, do they usually have different personalities?

wikiHow Contributor

Community Answer

When chickens are young, it is often hard to tell their sex. However as they start their "teenage" stage, that is when you will start to notice that the roosters will be making noises that sound almost like crowing! You'll know this noise when you hear it. If they continuously do this, that's usually the first sign. There are also physical traits that can sometimes be signs. One of these is pointy feathers on the body and tail. A pullet (female) has feathers are rounded around the edge and they usually have fuller, thicker tails. A rooster will usually have pointier feathers and a thinner, longer tail. These physical traits aren't always 100% accurate, but they often are signs.

You can always ask the breeder that you got your chicken from and check the hatch dates. If you can't contact the breeder, you can easily find out the chicken's approximate age. If the chicken is fully fluffy with no feathers, it is a week old chick. If the chick has wing feathers, it is a day old chick. If the chicken has full feathering but a pale wattle and comb, it could be a pullet/cockerel. If the chicken is fully feathered and fluffy with a red comb/wattle, it is a fully grown chicken, especially if laying. If the hen/rooster no longer lays and is no longer fertile, it is an old chicken.

Silkies are an ornamental chicken breed and you can use many of the sexing methods discussed above to determine the sex of chicks. Start by examining the feather development of the chicks at just a few months of age. Watch to see if any of your chicks start to crow or make warning noises, as this is a sign of maleness. You can also try the vent sexing method with silkies or hire a professional to try it for you.

It can be more difficult to tell their sex, as their comb and wattle may be partially hidden by their fluffy feathers. However, you can still look at behavioral indications. And, vent sexing is still an option for Silkie chicks.

To determine the sex of a baby chick, examine its wing feathers to see how long they are. If they're all the same length, then it's a male chick, but if they vary in length, it's a female chick. Additionally, look at the coloring on their heads since male chicks have light-colored heads, and females have dark brown heads. By 3-4 weeks old, you can determine the sex by noticing the size of the chicks as males will have larger bodies and heads than females. Or you can wait until the chicks are 6 weeks old and check for physical changes, like a waddle.